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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27221677">Who Tells Your Story</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmboldenedBirdbrain/pseuds/EmboldenedBirdbrain'>EmboldenedBirdbrain</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Unimaginable [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hamilton - Miranda, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adopted Children, Everyone is Dead, Hurt No Comfort, I Made Myself Cry, Jon dies, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Canon, Sad Martin Blackwood, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Sorry Not Sorry, Tea, jonmartin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 20:22:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>916</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27221677</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmboldenedBirdbrain/pseuds/EmboldenedBirdbrain</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Martin lives on, and he's trying to heal. Inspired by "It's Quiet Uptown" from Hamilton.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Unimaginable [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1987357</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Who Tells Your Story</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>“I spend hours in the garden, I walk alone to the store.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Martin is back in Scotland, after everything. The world did go back to the way it was. Very few remember what happened anymore, and he’s okay with that. He doesn’t want to go down in history. He never has. He goes to get more tea. It feels like continuing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“And it’s quiet uptown.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There are less people here than in London. Less people than there were in the domains. He can’t remember the last time it was this quiet for him. He expected he might live with Daisy and Basira, but Daisy didn’t make it. Basira comes to visit, though. They burnt down the cabin one night, the two of them. Daisy had asked them to before she left.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“I never liked the quiet before.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Martin remembers how much he used to like talking. He needed other people like he needed air, back then. After the Lonely, though, he knows his in-betweens. He made a life of them. He doesn’t live alone, but he knows he exists now without other people telling him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“I take the children to church on Sunday, the sign of the cross at the door.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was only natural for him to adopt the kids. He’d seen a few of them before, running around in the Dark. Some kids never found their parents, even after things went back to normal. They go to church now, too. It gives the kids something to do on weekends, and it gives Martin an explanation. He doesn’t know if he’d call himself blessed, but it does feel like a good word to use for all this.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“And I pray. That never used to happen before.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You would think Martin Blackwood would have had enough of gods, is what he once heard Basira say when she thought he wasn’t listening. Maybe he has; he isn’t sure. But he’d like for there to be something opposite to what he experienced. After all, how else could the world have just… gone back?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“You would like it uptown; it’s quiet uptown.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jon was buried in the churchyard. Martin made sure of it. It was stupidly traditional, really, and not wonderful for the environment, but Martin was just happy there was an environment to worry about again. Basira is watching the kids today, like she does every year on Jon’s birthday. Martin opens the paper cup of tea he brought. He isn’t sure if it’s allowed, but he pours it into the ground anyway.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“You knock me out, I fall apart.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Every year, Martin thinks he will not cry, and every year, he is wrong. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Look at where we are.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He talks, through the tears. The kids are doing great, he says. Andrew’s getting good marks in school again, oh I wish you could see how much he’s grown. And Mina, she’s made the girls’ football team. You’d be so proud of them all.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Look at where we started.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Do you remember when you proposed? he asks. We talked about this once. You said you’d always wanted to live in the country. And we talked about kids. You said you didn’t want children, but you might someday, and we never really talked about it again. We really should have. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Just hear me out, and that would be enough.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He hopes that wherever Jon is, he’s listening. The poet in him thinks it’s true. The archival assistant says it isn’t. He wonders what Jon would think of him, standing here, talking to a headstone like it could hear him. He would laugh, he thinks, but in that way that he always did when Martin was more optimistic than he could get himself to be.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“If I could spare his life, if I could trade his life for mine, then he’d be standing here right now.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>What would you have done, he asks, if it had been me? Maybe Jon would have taken down Elias faster, with less… collateral damage. Would Georgie be where Basira was now? Could Melanie have made it? He doesn’t ask Jon about that, though. He may be dead, but it still feels rude, somehow.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“You would smile, and that would be enough.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>God, but he misses Jon’s face. He remembers it well enough. Time hasn’t quite taken it from him yet, but still. He has a photo of Jon where he’s smiling, but it isn’t a real one. It’s a picture-smile, closer to a grimace. The way Jon used to smile, really smile, when he was happy…</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“I don’t pretend to know the challenges we’re facing. I know there’s no replacing what we’ve lost.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They were supposed to grow old together, or that’s what Martin had thought. They were married a few kilometres away. They had no idea what they were going to lose, and now Martin has grown old alone. He will die, years or maybe a decade after Jon. He thought they’d have so much time, before.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“But I’m not afraid. I know who I married.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was always going to be like this, Martin reminds himself. That’s okay. Jon would have wanted him to live, and to live well. Maybe he still does, wherever he is. But he isn’t ready to go just yet. I’ll be home late, he texts Basira. When the stars come out, Martin names all the constellations. He tells the stories just like Jon used to.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Just let me stay here by your side, and that would be enough.”</span>
  </em><br/>
<br/>
</p>
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